Matt Walsh? Who is He?

So today a friend of mine posted a link to "A Break-up Letter to Matt Walsh".

My immediate response was: who the fuck is Matt Walsh?

Well, a quick look on the Google told me pretty much what I need to know.  Matt Walsh is some guy who has a blog, a pretty successful blog, and he doesn't mind telling you about how awesome his blog is. My baptism into the Walsh blog was the statement:

In just a few days, this website will pass the 30 million view threshold.

And he proceeds, graciously, to share the two secrets to his success.

Well Matt, in maybe a month or two this blog will pass the 8,000 view threshold.  Allow me to share with you the two keys to my success.

1. Write pretty well, but don't really say anything.

Listen:  I think well of myself as a writer, I believe I can turn a phrase or two.  I think given the right opportunity I could probably make a couple bucks here and there writing erotic haiku or technical manuals on the proper lubrication of a series T-275 industrial fabrication machine.

But I find, sadly, increasingly, that I have very little to really say.  I don't have very strongly held beliefs, there are few things I am truly passionate about. If I am willing to beat to quarters to take a stand on a particular point of view, I am more likely to do a lot of navel gazing and examine the holes in my own argument rather than build a pointed, persuasive attack in support of my own view. By the time I work through an argument and shore everything up time has marched on and the moment for the conversation has passed.  My ethics are grey, my principles muddled.

What's worse is I'm fairly dispassionate to boot, and hyperbole is not my strong suit. I could never turn it up to 11 and summon the vitriol that Mr. Walsh pours on the most recent incarnation of Les Miserables (which I remember actually enjoying).  I mean...wow, Matt.  Chill out.  It was only a movie.  You didn't like it.  Okay.  I'm actually rather impressed that you could sustain your level of emotion long enough to write that post, especially as you saw the movie the night before.  

So I end up writing about things that people don't care about.  Abortion is a hot-topic.  Education is a hot-topic.  But for these things I wouldn't even know where to begin in untangling my own thoughts, let alone trying to persuade someone else to change their own point of view.  But a treatise on the Battle of Endor?  Cock and Ball Sweaters?  The gall filled breasts of Our Lady Hubris?  Those are the things I write about.  Unfortunately for me people care not a whit about such things.

2.  Do absolutely nothing to get the word out or otherwise make money off of it.

Don't put up ads, don't comment on other people's blogs, don't announce it on a radio show.  It helps too if you don't have a radio show in the first place by which you can reach even a modest number of people. Believe that you are going to fail, and that it was probably a good thing after all that you didn't change your major to English in your senior year.  Play it safe.

Well, all I can do is with Mr. Walsh the best of luck in the future as he continues doing what he does.  What he does agitates me (I don't know why....as the break up letter I linked to above notes, something about his posts makes me angry, gets the dander up, etc. etc.), but I have to admit he does it well.

Look, if I sound bitter, it's only because I think I could do the same.  There is a missing ingredient, maybe it's a lack of strong points of view, or a lack of bellicosity, a lack of innate intelligence, I don't know....But I honestly think I could write as well as this guy.  I don't know, but I think I could.  I think it's in there. Probably not as persuasively, but I think still yet: as well, maybe even better.  And if he could do it, why not me?

Vy you?  Vy anybody?

Maybe it's time to believe in myself, if nothing else.

Unfortunately for you, dear readers (all 11 of you), that means it's probably also time to put ads up on the blog.  Based on the sometimes risque subject matter of this blog, I wonder what kind of products might be advertised?

Not sure, but don't be surprised if in a few weeks you'll be able to buy an official set of Wassoblog Mardi Gras Beads.  Guaranteed to be more fun than the Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrows Fat Tuesday Pancake Dinner or your money back.

Yes, and My Dog Feels that Tottenham Hotspur Lack Creativity in the Final Third

So the today we were driving around, doing errands, and I saw this magnet stuck to the back end of the car in front of me:

and I had to fight the temptation to leap out of may car, knock on the driver's side window, and ask "Excuse me, but how do you know that your dog likes the Redskins? Did he tell you?"

As an aside, I remain quite perplexed at the amount of personal data people choose to affix to the back end of their cars.  It is not unusual for me, just by glancing at a rear window, to ascertain the size of a family, the hobbies of the children, occasionally the names of the children, number of cats, branch of military service, political party affiliation, zombie hunter status, alma mater, and on a rare occasion favorite French Impressionist painter.  Looking at the back of my car you could figure that I have at least one child at St. Mark Lutheran Preschool.  Our need for self-expression clearly has no bounds.

But back to the dog and his supposed fandom.  I would offer to the owner of the dog that one should really give the dog the opportunity to choose a team for himself.  Array the logos of all 32 teams around your furry friend (car magnets will work, as that seems to be your preferred medium by which to make a statement, and I'd recommend you smear them with bacon grease just to make sure he doesn't trot away in search of squirrels...you got to hold his interest), and turn him loose.  The first one he picks up with his nasty pointy teeth is the winner.

But be careful!  When we let dogs have a choice the results can be devastating.  My father once told me about how he would took his late and much beloved black labrador, Sammy, to work with him on the weekends.  While dad did his work, Sammy would do his (his job included lying in the sun, pricking up his ears at divers sounds, and greeting other people who might happen to be coming into work on a Sunday).

One day a new hire, a fairly attractive and brilliant woman recently out of college, walked in to catch up on some work,  and after greeting her in the hall Sammy watched as she walked towards her cubicle.  He then turned and stared through the doorway my dad's office, looked into my father's eyes.  He then looked towards where the woman had gone, and again once more back at my dad.  Sammy was just a dog, and he only had a few gears in his little brain, but to my dad it was obvious that they were spinning wildly while he balanced the equations concerning to whom he would rather offer up his canine talents.  At last the choice was made.  Sammy snorted with derision, and he pranced down the hall towards the young woman.

And he never came back.

Bollocks! Of course he came back.  Sammy was a good dog, a loyal dog.  But it was clear that for a moment his loyalty wavered and it cut my old man to the quick, allbeit for just a brief moment.

So, Mr. Redskins dog owner, don't get all upset when your dog shows his true colors and makes it known that he is a fan of the Cowboys or the Packers or the Steelers....and with Dan Snyder at the helm I really couldn't blame him.  I'd just as soon chew on a pair of old shoes than be a Redskins fan, and I'll bet your dog feels the same way.

Local Man on Being a Father for Second Time: "It's better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick."

Well, welcome at long last Hull #2 (aka Rosalyn Sophia).  Her weight was roughly 0.00357142857 LT and her length was 1.7916667 feet.  For those of you living under the oppressive hand of the metric system that would be 0.00362873869 Metric Tons and 0.5461 meters.  

Cute kid.

It feels pretty good to be a father once again and I am doing all the things a good father does.  I am perusing through the updated and expanded version of "The Book of All Knowledge" that the hospital supplies all new fathers thanks to a Government grant, this time with a new forward by Lou Holz.  I am interested in buying sensible shoes, and reckoning it's time to invest heavily in plastics.  Nightly I sing the Upper Malakvian Prayer of Impending Doom for my testicles, who do not have long for this world (yeah, I know they won't cut 'em off, but it's just not going to be the same).

Priorities, of course, are being re-thought.  With Hull #1 (aka Elizabeth) it felt like my world was turned upside down.  In some ways this was good, in some ways it really wasn't.  This time I can feel myself moving from something more solid with a wealth of experience, trying to wrap my life around a change rather than having a change redefine the life.

Somethings will have to give, of course.  My ongoing experimentation with banana nut bread as an energy source will sadly have to be shut down.  Franz will be disappointed.  Also, I'm afraid I'm going to have to concede that my Broadway musical on the life of solider/sculpture/assassin Benvenuto Cellini will probably never see the light of day.  They said it couldn't be done, and they are probably right (though Berlioz did manage an opera).  But I think I can keep up the blog (such as it is...) and maybe I can keep taking those first floundering steps to actually writing something different that might, you know, actually pay...

And I think tonight, because Rosalyn hasn't really woken up yet and is still sleeping most of the time, I think I can watch one episode of Duck Dynasty's new run before I collapse from exhaustion.  I'm hoping the new Robertson will add a new dimension to the show, which I feel may have hit its cultural apex two seasons ago and is now going to merely become a parody of itself.

Let's go new Robertson dude.  I know I am going to pay for this tomorrow.  Don't disappoint me.

(That's what she said.)